Artisan
Kalustyan’s
The range of international food and ingredients at New York City’s Kalustyan’s is so extensive, it boggles the minds of most cooks, who are thrilled it exists. Marion Burros once sang its praises in the New York Times: “…my search for every possible variety of lentil took me to Kalustyan...
Chef
John Folse
Louisiana chef John Folse was born, he says, “20 yards from the swamp floor pantry of South Louisiana’s Bayou Country,” and he’s been letting his Cajun and Creole roots do the talking in his kitchen (and on television and radio) for four decades, from the 1978 opening of his restaurant L...
Chef
Brian Landry
Louisiana fishermen and women have a staunch ally in executive chef Brian Landry, of New Orleans restaurant Borgne. Not only does Landry (along with chef-owner John Besh) put local seafood front and center at Borgne, he grew up fishing the Gulf waters and eating crawfish boils with his family, and e...
Chef
Stephanie Izard
Declared the winner (and Fan Favorite) of Top Chef, season four, in 2008, and the first woman to win the series, Stephanie Izard went from being a local Chicago favorite to a nationally recognized chef. She’d closed her restaurant, Scylla, the year before, but, with the boost from Top Chef, and wi...
Chef
Chris Pandel
Chris Pandel’s Chicago restaurants, The Bristol (eclectic American cooking), and Balena (artisanal Italian cuisine), are lauded for their simplicity and seasonal, locally sourced food. But Pandel’s take on elegant simplicity is rooted in classic French technique and Mediterranean flavors, as wel...
Artisan
Covey Rise Farms
More than 50 New Orleans–area restaurants create dishes from the baby greens, radishes, herbs, fingerling potatoes, and up to 150 varieties of other vegetables grown on Covey Rise Farms’ 35 acres in Husser, Louisiana. But if you had asked the farm’s owner, Sandy Sharp, about becoming a farmer ...
Artisan
The Farm at White Oak
For chefs John Folse and Rick Tramonto of New Orleans Restaurant R’evolution, it’s not enough to simply buy local produce; they started their own farm. In Gonzales, Louisiana, not far from Folse’s White Oak Plantation, a stately Baton Rouge property that hosts catering and special events, he t...
Artisan
Nichols Farm & Orchard
Lloyd and Doreen Nichols were gardeners who dreamed of having a farm that would sustain their family. In 1978, they began living the dream when they bought 10 acres in Marengo, Illinois, where they made butter and cheese from their own dairy animals, and planted orchards and vegetable gardens. Havin...
Artisan
Haymarket Pub & Brewery
When a brewery is named after one of the labor movement’s most powerful struggles, there’s bound to be a revolution inside its brewing kettles. Such is the case with the Haymarket Pub & Brewery, established near Chicago’s Haymarket Square, where the workers’-rights rally and resulting ri...
Artisan
Joong Boo Market
Whether Chicago cooks need a rice cooker or stockpot; a special ramen, nori, or kimchi; or fresh fruits and vegetables such as Asian greens, pears, and bean sprouts, the meticulously stocked Joong Boo Market, in the Avondale neighborhood, is the place they go. Launched in 1980 as Chicago Food Corp.,...
